Ramblings of a crazy cat lady.

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Greetings traveler! This is my blog, a cozy little corner on the internet that really has nothing significant to contribute to society. My best hopes are I’ll manage to entertain a handful of people! Who knows.

You can expect to find random rambles about my life and my health, funny videos and pictures, updates on my conditions and so forth. Comments are most welcome if you have thoughts to share. Need to get in touch with me? Visit my Contact me page.

My home away from home – The RP Repository is an amazing website to unleash your creativity and make amazing new friends! It’s being heralded as one of the friendliest communities on the internet, thanks to the wonderfully fair and human staff, and a community that looks out for each other.

No one size fits all. Clothes that advertise this lie. Healthcare professionals who try to sell you their programs with this idea lie. People who try to convince you to go on their diet and say their diet works for everyone lie. Fact of the matter is, there is always going to be a group of people for whom something isn’t going to work out. Diabetics in particular are a good example of this, regardless of their type.

Some diabetics have very poor control on LCHF (low carb high fat). Some diabetics have the best control they’ve ever had in their entire lives on LCHF.

Some diabetics are constantly in a state of hyperglycemia on a plant based, high carb (vegan) diet. Some diabetics have never seen better numbers in 40+ years of being diabetic ever since becoming vegan.

Some diabetics can’t eat ‘regular’ meals consisting of carbs, proteins, fibers and fats because it skyrockets their values. Some diabetics have excellent numbers as long as they take their medication properly for what they eat.

Being involved with the diabetic community I’ve seen all of the above and then some. It’s becoming ever more obvious to me that there is no “One” diet for diabetics, just like there is no “One” treatment in general. It’s also why it becomes so aggravating when people get pushy in sharing their success with their diet and treatment. They’re so glad that they found something that works that they insist it works for all, without taking into consideration that two people can be on the same exact diet, meal after meal, and have wildly varying results. Where one person drops weight like crazy, the other gains. Where one person sees dramatic improvement, the other just gets worse.

I deeply encourage every person to explore their options. Give diets a try, see which lifestyle change works for you. You’ll notice soon enough whether it’s effective for you or not. But please, pretty please, be considerate of those who have something that works for them. I can’t even begin to express my frustrations with people carelessly pushing their way of life onto me without knowing anything about my history or situation. Yes, I am very happy that it works for you. Genuinely, I am, because diabetes is a bitch and struggling for years with a diet that makes you feel bad is not fun. It’s fantastic when you find your holy grail in your diabetes treatment.

Just accept that it is probably different from that of others. Don’t lecture unless someone asks you to share information. Don’t try to guilt-trip them into it by saying ‘But don’t you want to live long and healthily?!’. That’s very disrespectful and dismissive of the nature of this disease. I’ve only been diabetic since 2014, and on insulin for 4 months now, but I’ve already heard most of it and I’m already exhausted from other people trying to meddle in my affairs.

I know my body. I know what happens when I eat x food. I know what my wallet allows me to buy. I know what foods upset my IBS and give me unbearable cramps. A stranger on the internet can’t ever possibly know enough about my body and my life to give me adequate advice. If advice is asked for, it should be suggestive and encouraging, not demanding and reprimanding.

Be kind to each other, especially if you’re fellow diabetics. Trust that someone knows themselves well enough to make the right decisions. Give guidance only when asked for because nobody likes it when others stick their noses in your business. Embrace individuality and respect it, because that’s how we can be our best and bring out the best in others.

Yes, my life revolves a lot around diabetes. From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed, my mind is constantly involved with how I feel, what I’m eating, what I’m going to be eating.

I’m testing 4-9 times a day. I’m injecting 4-9 times a day, ranging from injecting for a meal, to injecting for a correction, to injecting my background insulin, and injecting for random surprise snacks. When I step on the bike or go out, I have to have all my stuff with me – insulin, sugar, glucometer, alcohol wipes, backup batteries, lancets, needles and bandaids. Before I go outside I have to make sure I either ate enough or my bloodsugar is high enough so that I don’t pass out and cause accidents. When I go to bed, I have to make sure I don’t have a nigh time hypo from which I’ll never wake up just in case I fucked up somewhere during the day and evening.

I have to put up with the horrible feelings of hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia. Shaking, feeling confused, hungry and fog brained, often not immediately realizing you need to fix this NOW, is a horrible way to spend your time when you run low. Feeling exhausted and lethargic, fog brained, unwell, hungry and dealing with headaches is really awful when you run high. It can take hours to recover from these and sometimes they happen even when you do everything right.

I don’t think diabetes defines me, but if I want to be healthy and take good care of myself, it’s a full time occupation and difficult to avoid. It’s on my mind constantly. It can make you weary. I like to share everything about it because it keeps me motivated and pulls me through the times where I’m putting off my injection or struggling with the guilt of overeating (when you count carbs and inject to what you eat religiously even when you’re stuck in anxiety induced binge mode, it’s very confronting to see how much goes into your body).

My view on food has changed dramatically. I’m constantly thinking “Can I eat that? How many carbs? What will it do to my levels? How much fat is in there? How long do I have to wait between injecting and eating?” Whenever people ask about dietary advice, it’s hard to give that from outside the diabetes perspective. (Sorry if I sometimes forget not everyone has to be so mindful of their food!)

A lot of the time, people don’t take care of their diabetes the way they should, or they have learned to hide it from everyone. I’m very open and diligent so I’m sure it can appear as if I’m constantly shoving it into everyone’s faces especially when other diabetics are mum about theirs. But this is my life, and I want to grow old, so I want to make sure I got this and don’t fuck it up. I’m gonna talk about it because it makes up a lot of my day, even if it’s annoying, and it helps me avoid feeling burned out and isolated.

I’ve been going a bit crazy with makeup recently. Now that I found a foundation in my shade and figured out how to work with my hooded eyes, my makeup game has improved by about 500% and I’m not planning on stopping soon. I also feel more confident in my skin and like I can wear bolder looks, and I know what I want in a product. Thus began my search for a holy grail liner, a bright and colorful matte palette with decent pigmentation and figuring out if I can hack a nifty beauty tool.

L.A. Girl – Glide Gel Liner

Now this thing right here is what I call a god damn miracle in pencil shape. I have liquid, gel and regular kohl liners but I run into issues with all of them. My lashes are too thin, light colored and short to make liquid liner look good, even when I tight line. Gel works really well but the ones I’ve found that I like aren’t exactly smudge or waterproof. Kohl liner just makes me look like a panda after a couple of hours, especially when I use it to tight line.

Then there comes the L.A. Girl Glide Gel Liner and I’m blown away by how well it holds up. Once you apply this liner and allow it to set, it really doesn’t go anywhere. It takes an oily makeup remover to take off. After I swatch these liners on my hand and wait a minute, I can pretty vigorously rub my finger on top and nothing happens to it. I have to keep going for a while or involve spit or oil to make it budge, so unless you’re rubbing your eyes all day long nothing’s going to happen to that liner. Not only that, the way it applies is an absolute dream. It’s a pencil liner but it applies like a gel. Without any pressure or needing to warm up the pencil it just glides onto your skin like nobody’s business (which is probably why they named it the way they did!). For only 5 euros a piece, with the very black pigment payoff and all the qualities it has, I genuinely can’t complain.

Kara Beauty Bright & Matte Eyeshadow Palette – ES02

I’ll be honest with you: after searching for a palette that I liked and stumbling on the Morphe Brushes 35B palette, I had my heart set on that one. The pigmentation looked good for the price, the range of colors was diverse, every color has a matte version which was important to me and it wasn’t going to cost me an arm and a leg. (More honesty: if I had the money, I’d definitely have shelled out 73 euros for the Viseart Bright Editorial palette.)

Unfortunately, Morphe products are all the rage at the moment thanks to big Beauty YouTubers promoting the crap out of them, so my favorite online makeup store has been out of stock for weeks and they’re not expecting a refill until the beginning of May. I know that Morphe does private labeling (which doesn’t bother me at all) so I started looking for Morphe ‘dupes’ that contain the colors I need.

Lo and behold, I stumbled upon the Kara ES02 palette – pretty much an exact duplicate of the Morphe 35B, and about 5 euros cheaper to boot! I watched some swatches/reviews on YouTube from the few folks who’d gotten their hands on this. They all agreed that the matte colors are more pigmented than the Morphe palette, but the shimmers are better with Morphe. Since I specifically wanted this for the mattes I didn’t care much about the latter, especially because I already have a shimmery rainbow colored palette.

Why the difference though? No idea. The colors appear identical so I’m assuming they’re from the same factory, but the ingredients are different between Kara’s and Morphe’s palettes, so who knows what happened there. Maybe the new batch of Morphe palettes coming in May are more like this?

All I know for sure is that I really, really like the way this palette looks once applied to my eyes. The pigment is good, but better when applied wet. A white base brings the colors out perfectly. It’s definitely buildable if you use them dry too. One thing I highly, highly recommend is using a good eye shadow primer. And I mean a legitimate primer, not a concealer or moisturizer. I tried one eye with a primer + white concealer, and another eye with just white concealer, and the eye without a primer stained something fierce. I spent 15 minutes trying to clean it off, which is not something I enjoy doing at the end of the day.

Kara’s palette is exactly what I wanted. The pigmentation is not mind blowing, but solid enough to work with. I’m super impressed for the price and color payoff for sure!

Dry makeup brush cleaner

You’ve probably heard of the Sephora Switch. It’s a sponge in a tin on which you swirl a used (dry) eye shadow brush to clean it and immediately dip it into a different eyeshadow. It doesn’t replace washing your brushes regularly but it will save you a crapton of tissues and makeup wipes to clean the brushes between uses. There are other brands available and I was fortunate enough to get a free brush cleaner with my recent makeup order!

I want to start by saying: this works excellently and allows you to apply multi-colored makeup faster with a minimal amount of brushes. Need to blend with a clean blending brush? Just swirl it around on this thing a few times and you have a clean blending brush. It’s easy to take with you and doesn’t take up a whole lot of space. It will last you a long time and all you have to do is rinse it out in soapy water every now and then to clean it.

My only issue with the sponge is this: the markup on these is ridiculous. The Sephora Switch is almost twenty dollars. The actual product probably doesn’t even cost a buck to make. You can go to the pet store and purchase a coarse aquarium filter sponge, cut it to size, stuff it into a random empty tin at home and it will be the exact same product. Similarly you can purchase a cheap bunch of stippling sponges intended for special effects makeup and probably spend no more than 1 or 2 dollars per sponge.

There is nothing special about this. It is just a coarse sponge that is used in a wide variety of situations, and I have to be honest and say I am bothered by the way it’s marketed. I will never deny any company to make a profit with good products, but whereas I can’t make my own buttery eye shadows and press them into a professional looking palette, this is something that even a child can purchase with their allowance and make without needing an adult at all. And they want us to shell out twenty bucks for it? This is just a gimmicky way to make a lot of profit.

If this is something you really want to try out for yourself, just make it and save yourself the money. I was already considering doing that before I got this for free, and it’s exactly what I expected. If the sponge wears out, I’m just going to my local pet store and replace it.

All in all I am pleased with all of these, even if the sponge irks me a bit on the marketing side of things. I have been experimenting with various looks and I’m very excited for the warm and pleasant spring days to arrive so I can start wearing bold, floral inspired looks! I’m also prepping for Pride Month with rainbow eye looks to dazzle everyone in sight!

Would you like to see more makeup reviews? My blog isn’t makeup focused but I enjoy reviewing products. I ordered the Red Cherry lashes I talked of before and most of my issues disappeared with them. If you want to hear my thoughts on Red Cherry lashes and their glue, let me know! 🙂

The glue-on lashes make my eyes look fan-fucking-tastic. I’m able to apply them just fine (and will practice more in the future), but I run into two issues:

The ever so famous “one of the corners came off” issue happens to me every single time, despite royally applying glue to the corners and them sticking for an hour or two just fine. Yes I allow the glue to dry before applying. I have no idea how to fix this.

Someone suggested cutting the lashes into 3 sections but that might look like crap too. Anyone have experience with this?

I’m very curious to try individual lashes, are they less likely to come off than full band lashes? Are they more difficult to take off?

It might be the lashes and the glue themselves. They are ‘cheap’ drugstore brand (Kruidvat) and obviously plastic-y, the glue might not be very good at all, but I’m not experienced enough to know. I’ve never tried more expensive or different brand lashes because I couldn’t justify investing when I’ve barely worn/planned on wearing falsies.

I have a cylinder in one eye, which means my right eyeball is shaped different from my left. This in turn makes my eyelids uneven, and the lashes don’t apply the same way to each lid. Should I just accept that they will always look uneven or is there a fix for it? I’m fine with my eyes being different (sisters, not twins, applies to everything and not just eyebrows!) but if there’s a way to improve symmetry I’m all for it.

I want to order some nice Red Cherry lashes with the ‘Red Cherry She Gloo Clear’ in the next week with my birthday money – any thoughts or recommendations for other lashes/glues are most welcome. (Keep in mind I live in the Netherlands, so not all brands may be available to me.)